Posts tagged: Red

Learn how to make sangria for the perfect summer drink. It’s easy and does the double duty of both looking amazing in a glass and tasting delicious. The concept is extremely simple: add fruit to wine and chill. There are hundreds of ways to customize your sangria but I find that simple is best. Simply add fresh blueberries, strawberries and apples to white wine with a squeeze of lemon, chill and serve with a splash of sparkling water.

The pretty combination of red strawberries, blue blueberries and white apples makes this a must-serve at your 4th of July barbecue. And the best part: it’s easy to transport if you’re not the one doing the hosting. Simply pour the wine and fruit into a large jar with a lid or use plastic 32-ounce soup containers. A bottle of wine usually contains 25 ounces so figure 5 ounces per person.

White wine sangria is best with a bright and light wine, something like chardonnay or pinot grigio. Adding a few dashes of bitters just before serving makes this wine cocktail less sweet. This sangria is best enjoyed VERY cold. So make sure you keep it in the fridge or in a cooler and have plenty of ice to serve with it. Use dainty cocktail glasses or champagne flutes to serve smaller drinks that guests can enjoy before it warms up.

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4th of July: A Red, White and Blue Sangria Recipe

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Ingredients

8 hours, 10 minutes

8 servings

2 bottles of chilled white wine (chardonnay or pinot grigio)

1 cup blueberries

10 strawberries, thinly sliced

1 apple (Gala or Honeycrisp is best), peeled and thinly sliced

1 lemon (about 2 tablespoons juice)

4 ounces sparkling water

Angostura bitters (optional)

Instructions

Ready in

8 hours, 10 minutes

Pour the wine into a large bowl or jar. Add the blueberries, strawberries and apples and use the back of a wooden spoon to mash the fruit (only slightly, for about 15 seconds). Cut the lemon in half and squeeze in the juice.

Chill in fridge overnight. Serve with ice in wine glasses with a splash of sparkling water and a dash of bitters.

The stunning combination of deep red velvet cake with bright white icing, blueberries and blue sprinkles makes these mini cupcakes one of the most festive 4th of July desserts.

What makes a red velvet cake a red velvet cake? Well, for starters red food coloring but also the essential ingredients of buttermilk and vinegar. The buttermilk adds subtle flavor and bounce to the cake and the vinegar is essential to enhance the red color. You can of course simply buy red velvet cake mix or just use your favorite chocolate cake batter recipe.

Cut out some of the sugar by replacing the sugar icing with fresh whipped cream which is so much lighter than traditional cupcake icing. You can even add a drop of all-natural red or blue food coloring to the heavy cream before beating.

Make sure to buy mini cupcake wrappers in blue or silver. In a pinch you can bake the cupcakes directly in the mini muffin tin but know that they are difficult to remove and you’ll need to heavily grease the pan.

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4th of July Desserts Mini Cupcakes Recipe

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Ingredients

For the cake:

1 teaspoon baking soda

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

3 cups cake flour

½ teaspoon salt

2 ¼ cup sugar

3 large eggs

2 tablespoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon white vinegar

1 stick of unsalted butter (8 tablespoons), at room temperature

1 cup buttermilk

red liquid or gel food coloring (about 2 tablespoons)

1 cup vegetable oil

48 mini cupcake wrappers

For the tops:

1 cup heavy whipping cream

½ teaspoon sugar

½ pint blueberries

¼ cup blue sugar sprinkles

1 cup strawberries

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Place a paper wrapper in each cupcake slot of the mini muffin tin.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together with a handheld mixer. Beat for 3 minutes, then add the vegetable oil and beat for another minute. Add the eggs, vinegar and 2 tablespoons of food coloring and beat for one more minute. Make sure the color is a deep red and add more coloring as needed. Then add the flour mixture to the batter about 1 cup at a time. Try not to over mix.

Use a tablespoon to scoop the mixture into the lined tin. Fill each cup about ⅔ of the way and bake for 16 minutes. Remove from oven and set to cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes, then repeat until you have used all the batter.

To make the whipped cream, use the same handheld mixer to beat the heavy cream on high in a large chilled metal bowl for about 5 minutes. Add the sugar as soon as peaks start to form. Chill the whipped cream until you are ready to use it. Use a butter knife to frost the cupcakes and add blueberries, sprinkles and thinly sliced strawberries to decorate.

Natural red velvet cake without any food dyes and grain-free? Game on!

With Valentine’s Day coming up, I wanted to give you a healthier option to a holiday favorite.

This grain-free, dye-free red velvet cupcake recipe gets its red color from roasted beets, and you can’t actually taste the beets at all!

I played around with different sugars, and this recipe really does taste best with maple sugar, or organic cane sugar. I tried it with coconut sugar, and while the cake tasted nice, it did have a slight off-flavor that I wasn’t a huge fan of. I rarely use an organic cane sugar, but for a recipe like this that I only make once a year, I’m OK with making an exception.

Also, keeping the sugar as low as possible in desserts is an important factor to me. I found that keeping the sweetener at 3/4 cup was best so that the beet flavor didn’t shine through and instead you get that lovely traditional red velvet flavor.

Red velvet cake is served with cream cheese frosting, but if you need to avoid cream cheese, here and here are some great options for a dairy-free “cream cheese” frosting. And, to make the cupcakes a bit more festive, I sprinkled them with freeze-dried raspberries and inserted a beet chip in them.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF and adjust the rack to the middle position. Place the roasted beets, vanilla and buttermilk in a food processor or blender and blend until smooth. Pour the beet mixture into a large mixing bowl. Add the almond flour, coconut flour, cocoa powder, maple sugar or cane sugar, baking powder, eggs and butter. Whisk until smooth, about 30 seconds. Divide evenly into a lined muffin tin. Bake for 20 minutes or until baked through. Cool completely.

Whisk mascarpone or cream cheese, vanilla and honey in the bowl of a standing mixer until smooth. Using a spatula, fold in whipped cream. Frost cooled cupcakes with frosting and sprinkle with dried raspberries, if using. These are best served the day they are made.